EarthVPN Review: decent and cheap

by HKTravelBlog · Published November 29, 2014 · Updated November 29, 2014

Wonder which VPN service to use? I have used EarthVPN the past year and I can say it’s good, especially for the price. They are having a promotion this week with code ANNUAL20. Normally the yearly service is $39.99 but with the code it’s 20% off at $31.99.

In case you were wondering, VPN means “virtual private network.” In layman terms, basically you can fake your location to web sites by pretending you are coming from a different IP address.

I use it primarily to watch TV or video that’s limited to being broadcast in the US only, for example Hulu.com. This lets me stay up to date with the latest US sitcoms and shows, especially important since the quality on TVB is so poor these days. During the Olympics I was able to get the broadcast from CBC in Canada and BBC in England. It came in really handy.

You can also use it for other IP restricted web sites, for example, to use annualcreditreport.com in the US you need to have a US IP address. Or if you don’t want someone snooping around your internet surfing behavior, you can also use it to as a way to hide a bit. EarthVPN claims not to keep any logs, and is based in Northern Cyprus so most jurisdictions have no control over telling them to release data on you. I’m not too savvy on the privacy aspects, as I use it primarily just to change the location I’m surfing from but it’s nice to be anonymous.

EarthVPN will have servers in 52 countries around the world by the end of this year, so it should be suitable for most of you reading. You can also use VPN service anywhere in the world, not just from HK. Of course from China it’s the best since you can access restricted web sites, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter.

One major concern with VPN services is the speed. I have had problems in the past with another service, ibVPN, I don’t recommend them at all. I couldn’t stream any video smoothly. EarthVPN lets me stream video and access other sites without much problem. OpenVPN seems to be the fastest protocol to use, PPTP and L2TP appears slower. Occasionally it’ll be slower, particular around weeknights after dinner. I think most people in Hong Kong are web surfing at that time, so it’s probably iCable service more than the VPN provider.

EarthVPN has a client you can use to access VPN, if you don’t want to manually tinker around your Windows or MacOS settings. I find it really easy to use, and it has the list of server locations do you don’t need to manually put each one in.

If you’re looking for a reliable VPN service with good speeds for the very inexpensive price of $39.99 / year, I suggest EarthVPN. You can sign-up here, I am an affiliate and hope you use our link to help defray the cost of keeping this site up. By the way, there’s a 7 day unconditional money back guarantee if you don’t like their service, so there’s harm to see if you like them.

2 Responses

[…] The Uber promotion credit is location based using your IP address. If you use VPN, you can change your computer location. e.g. I am going to the US so I signed up for the $30 USD promotion to use when I arrive. Will be great to get a free ride from the airport! I use EarthVPN which I wrote about in the past. […]